Goodbye REMOURBAN
After five years' work by more than 20 partners in five countries, REMOURBAN is now coming to an end as a project. However, it is only just beginning as a way forward for a greener and smarter urban future.
We've now accomplished all the works, recorded all the results, prepared factsheets with the lessons learned and produced a workable urban regeneration model for use in towns and cities across Europe and further afield.
Today in our three Lighthouse cities, Nottingham, Eskişehir/Tepebaşı and Valladolid, residents are directly benefiting from improved quality of life, healthier environments and the authorities are better placed to fight climate change and energy poverty.
This is also true for our follower cities, Miskolc and Seraing, as they have been testing the REMOURBAN model in order to draw up their own regeneration policies and plans.
There is much technology available for greatly reducing our energy consumption in the built environment and we've sought to draw on it as much as possible. However, where REMOURBAN stands out as a project is in its ability to harness this technology, channeling it into new business models, and encouraging citizens to adopt new perspectives and behaviours.
Much of what we've accomplished has indeed been "non-tech" like citizen engagement. In this project we've devised methods for empowering citizens; we've set up committees and adapted our communication to fully embrace their concerns and to involve them. This has even included schoolchildren as education about greener towns and cities is crucial in the years to come.
REMOURBAN was never to be an end in itself; its battle cry could be "replication". It is now important to continue pursuing these efforts, via our communities – the consortium, our fellow Lighthouse projects, our social media followers and of course the citizens themselves. In this respect, I would like to invite readers to join us for our final conference that will take place on July 16. For obvious reasons, it will be a virtual conference.
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the multidisciplinary and multinational REMOURBAN team. Such huge projects are never straightforward to design and deliver, especially where partners are so wide-ranging and from different cultures. But the consortium has always risen to the challenges along the way and together we've put together a wealth of insights, experience and methods to make our cities more resilient, healthier and smarter. Without their commitment, grit and hard work, we wouldn't have achieved the results we did, some of which exceed our expectations.
So, a big thank you to all partners, contributors and followers for your efforts, commitment and positive attitude to what I think has been a most successful Lighthouse project.
Miguel García-Fuentes
CARTIF Technology Centre
TOOLKIT FOR REPLICATION
 | Urban Regeneration Model A methodological guide to technical and non-technical innovations (such as citizen and stakeholder involvement, management and governance, business models, financial instruments) for making cities smarter and more sustainable. |
 | Best practices and lessons learned This set of best practices contains advice for making towns and cities more sustainable and integrated. In this guide you will find practical insights into key overlapping areas and solutions for sustainable urban regeneration – energy, mobility, ICT and non-technical – with best practice factsheets for each. |